1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for preventing priority inversion in power line communication and a recording medium and apparatus for performing the same, and more particularly, to a priority inversion prevention method for preventing a malfunction that occurs when there are hidden nodes in power line communication and a recording medium and apparatus for performing the same.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Recently, power line communication (PLC) network technology is getting the spotlight as one of the communication network configuration methods for a home network. PLC network technology uses existing power lines that have been built and thus does not need additional separate wiring, unlike the Ethernet. Also, PLC network technology may easily cover even a basement or other places that are unreachable by radio wave signals, unlike the wireless communication methods.
PLC applies a prioritization technique to determine the order of data to be transmitted. However, the prioritization technique for PLC operates abnormally immediately after a packet collision occurs. Accordingly, the prioritization technique is also likely to operate abnormally when a hidden node is present in a network. Since hidden nodes cannot identify nodes with priorities higher than those of the hidden nodes themselves, the hidden nodes attempt transmission, and the transmission may collide with a packet of transmissions with a high priority. After the collision, all nodes in the network may compete with each other, and thus a node with a lower priority may complete a transmission earlier than a node with a higher priority.
When a hidden node is present in a network as described above, data transmission collisions may occur very frequently. Accordingly, an effective data transmission method is required, which can increase the performance of the prioritization technique even when there is a hidden node.